New AI software will help Facebook ‘identify terrorists’

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to allow artificial intelligence (AI) software to review content posted on the social networking site.

In a letter outlining the plan, he said Facebook’s algorithms would eventually be able to identify “terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda” along with other issues such as violence and bullying.

“We're starting to explore ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda so we can quickly remove anyone trying to use our services to recruit for a terrorist organization,” Zuckerberg wrote in his 5,500-word letter discussing the future of Facebook.

The founder, however, admitted the technical difficulties involved in this. “This is technically difficult as it requires building AI that can read and understand news, but we need to work on this to help fight terrorism worldwide,” he wrote.

“The path forward is to recognize that a global community needs social infrastructure to keep us safe from threats around the world, and that our community is uniquely positioned to prevent disasters, help during crises, and rebuild afterwards. Keeping the global community safe is an important part of our mission -- and an important part of how we'll measure our progress going forward,” the letter stated.